Jack and the Beanstalk Craft and Math Activities

The kids really enjoyed exploring different versions of Jack and the Beanstalk. To go along with our reading activities, we made this fun craft and incorporated a little math and science learning along the way.

FIND ALL OF OUR JACK AND THE BEANSTALK ACTIVITIES IN OUR PRINTABLE LESSON PLANS.

Jack and the Beanstalk Craft

To begin I printed this adorable Jack and the Beanstalk printable set.  The kids used all of the pieces to retell the stories throughout the week, but we only used the castle for this craft.

After I used a white pipe cleaner and tape to secure the castle to a paper plate, the kids glued cotton balls on the plate to represent the clouds in the sky.

Then I drew some simple straight lines on a green strip of paper so the kids could easily cut some leaves for our beanstalk.

While they worked on cutting, I glued a green piece of paper to an empty paper towel roll.

I used a hole punch to put holes in the leaves the kids cut out. Then they added them to a green pipe cleaner. Each child made one, so I twisted them together and looped them around the covered paper towel roll. We had to spread the leaves around a little bit so they didn’t all bunch together. We stapled the ends of the pipe cleaner to secure it.

Then we practiced balancing the plate on top of the beanstalk. They quickly noticed that if they didn’t put the paper towel right in the middle of the plate it would fall over. The kids thought it was so neat! And they were learning a lot about balance in the process.

Math Activities

We used this craft for a variety of math activities throughout the week.

Comparing More and Less: First we just practiced placing beans (dry lima beans) on the plate without knocking it over. This took a little practice. They had to learn to go slowly and be careful not to bump the plate with their arms. Each time the plate would fall we would gather the beans into a separate pile and set the pile aside. Then we would start over. When the plate tipped over again, we would make another pile and talk about which pile had more beans and which pile had less beans. The kids were excited to see that their piles had more and more beans as they were getting better at learning how to place the beans more carefully.

Counting: Once the kids were more comfortable placing beans on the plate, we started to play a game. We would roll a number cube and then place that many beans on the plate. By the end of the week they were getting really good at balancing those beans. Once we even ran out of beans before they tipped the plate!

Sound: Don’t you love when kids explore materials in a different way than you envisioned? I always love to see their minds at work. After a while the kids decided to play with only the beanstalk. They started dropping beans, and they were excited to hear the sound the beans made as they hit the tile floor. Then I heard, “What if?” Ooh, how I love to hear those words. It means they are thinking! Soon they decided to put the beanstalk on the carpet, and they were talking about the difference between the sound of the beans falling on the carpet and on the tile.

Capacity: And on another day this turned into a way of learning about capacity. Lovey was trying to see how many beans the beanstalk would hold, and it was a lot more than she anticipated. We started counting one by one, but she lost interest (and so did I) after we got to 180. Then she started adding them by the handful. I think she really just wanted to see if she could fill the whole tube.

When she finally did fill the tube, she was surprised to see that there were still some beans left. She picked up the container that the beans were in (you can just barely see it in the picture below), and said, “But this is smaller than this (the tube).” This led to a great discussion about capacity. I tried my best to explain that sometimes containers that are shorter but wider can hold more than taller containers that are more narrow. I am not sure she believed me, but it was a great introduction to the concept.

We also used our own Jack and the Beanstalk  free printable for more math exploratin. Here’s a quick glimpse.

Looking for more ideas? We also extended this book with some alphabet and phonemic awareness activities.

Of course, there were more wonderful ideas that we just didn’t get to in our busy week. You can find some of those ideas on my Letter J Pinterest Board.

Do you do any math and science activities related to Jack and the Beanstalk? I would love to hear about them.

GET A FULL WEEK OF JACK & THE BEANSTALK THEME LEARNING AND PLAY

Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.

This set includes active hands-on learning ideas and the following printables:

1) My Beanstalk science activity

2) Jack and the Beanstalk Shape Building Mats (in color and b/w)

3) Climb the Beanstalk Alphabet Game (4 versions in color and b/w)

4) The Giant’s Gold class book covers (in color and b/w) and page template

5) Hen and Eggs Beginning Sound Sort

6) Jack and the Beanstalk vocabulary cards (in color and b/w)

7) I Found Magic Beans counting activity and recording sheet (in color and b/w)

8) Climbing the Beanstalk counting and number sequencing activity

9) Shake, Drop, Add Math Game with game mat (in color and b/w) and recording sheet

GET YOUR LESSON PLANS

Jack and the Beanstalk Theme Lesson Plans

All of our products are also available on Teachers Pay Teachers if you prefer to shop there.